Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/73

Rh to the United States exploring expedition under General Albert Sidney Johnson in 1857; aided G. M. Dodge to locate the line of the Union Pacifiic railroad, and acted as guide to the army in the campaign against the Sioux Indians, 1865-6; and received honorable burial at his death, and a handsome monument over his remains in Mt. Washington cemetery by the people of Kansas city. In every respect Bridger was a typical pioneer American, plunging into the depths of the wilderness for the excitement of it, and to gratify a curiosity to see what was in the great beyond. He was the friend of the emigrants to Oregon, and wandered far out of his way to warn them against marauding savages and guide them on their course. He was never lost. Father De Smet pronounced Bridger one of the truest specimens of the real Rocky mountain trapper. Bridger's peak was named in his honor; and in the capital building of the State of Minnesota is the painting of a trapper in full dress, of which Bridger was the original. He aided Dr. Whitman in his first trip to Oregon, and in return, the Doctor cut an iron arrowhead out of Bridger's shoulder, which had been fired into him by a Blackfoot Indian. Nevertheless, the trapper retained no grudge against the red race, and took a Shoshone woman for a wife.

There were many others engaged in pioneering into the western wilderness toward Oregon for furs and Indian trade. There were the four Sublette brothers, all able energetic men in their manner of life. Captain Sublette served with Ashley, and brought him out. He had a rare faculty of managing the Indians, but when he had to fight them, they always got the worst of it. Sublette was the first man to tame the Blackfeet. After a desperate fight with them at Pierre's hole, renowned among the Rocky mountain men as the greatest battle with the Indians, the Blackfoot submitted to Sublette and helped him celebrate a sort of Roman triumph on his return to St. Louis with a pack of Indian ponies, a mile long, laden with peltries. One of the Sublettes drifted as far west as California, as one of the forty-niners, and there got into a fight with a grizzly bear, killed the bear but died afterwards from the wounds inflicted by the beast.

And about this time we find two men floating through the history of Oregon, whose careers were quite as much that of diplomats as fur trading explorers. Russell Farnham, was a New Englander, had been a clerk for Astor, and dropped into St. Louis about the opening of the war of 1812. Farnham visited Indians and fur traders and made confidential reports to Astor. One of his forest trips took him up to the British boundary line in the territory of Minnesota. On returning to civilization, he was arrested as a British spy, but on being identified as an Astor man, was released. Farnham conferred with Wilson P. Hunt, and found his way to the Pacific, still confidentially looking out for the interests of Mr. Astor. After the ruin of the Astoria enterprise, Farnham undertook to carry an account of it to Astor by crossing over to Siberia in the ship Pedler, and then making his way across Siberia, Russia and Europe to catch a ship going to New York. Of this trip, Elihu Shephard, the pioneer historian of St. Louis says:

"On entering Siberia, Farnham crossed the eastern continent to St. Petersburgh, where the American minister to the Russian court presented Farnham to Emperor Alexander, as the bold American who had traveled across his empire. The Emperor received him with great kindness and consideration, and sent him on his way to Paris. After great exposure to dangers, toils and sufferings, such as no other man voluntarily submitted himself to for his countrymen, he reached New York, delivered his papers to Astor, apprising him of his losses and the ruin at Astoria, and then made his way back to St. Louis, where he was received as one risen from the dead."

And about this time there were scores of adventurous spirits pushing out from St. Louis to all points ranging from the headwaters of the Missouri down to Santa Fe. and on to California. Kit Carson was probably the most noted